Attention for Hossenfelder's Science Channel

NPR reports:

The dark days of the COVID-19 pandemic helped transform Sabine Hossenfelder into an unlikely social media star. ...

Hossenfelder's science channel has also become a ready platform for her somewhat contrarian views on the state of physics. Among them is what she sees as the problem of beauty, the pursuit of simplicity. Specifically, how her colleagues who try to fathom the fundamental underpinnings of the universe are obsessed with it. ...

But as we seek answers in a complex universe, Hossenfelder cautions that the quest for simplicity could be a dead end. ...

Posting videos to the internet, it turns out, generates a more reliable revenue stream to fund her work in quantum gravity.

Her videos have a lot of good info, but quantum gravity is a waste of time.

A less favorable review from Professor Dave:

Sabine Hossenfelder is a very popular science communicator who focuses largely on topics in physics. Although much of her content is effective and without issue, there is an undercurrent of anti-establishment rhetoric that has grown immensely as of late, and it is an enormous problem. Sabine is a not a charlatan like most of my other targets, and this is not a hit piece, but rather commentary on this aspect of her work and how it came to be. If you are a fan of hers, consider this perspective.

Professor Dave is not a professor, and not a physicist. His main complaint is that she has harsh words for those doing Physics research, and he says there is lots of good reseach. But her main gripes are with those doing dead-end research in certain foundational and speculative areas.

She has a new video in response, where she doubles down on her point that the last 50 years have made no progress in foundational issues.

I would say quantum gravity is one of those dead-end areas where all or nearly all research is worthless.

Actually I might argue that foundational Physics has made negative progress, as many have jumped on absurd theories like many-worlds.

Because Professor Dave is not a physicist, I don't think he appeciates how much theoretical Physics has lost its way.

Both of these channels have a lot of worthwhile videos. My main beef with her is that she subscribes to superdeterminism, a concept contrary to the whole scientific enterprise.

Update: Professor Dave has doubled down with another attack video:

I criticized some unprofessional behavior regarding her choice of titles, thumbnails, and generalized deceptive anti-science rhetoric which has clearly been fueling science denial among the public in large numbers. ... All of those people wanted to talk about academia, so let's talk about academia a little bit in this video, while also addressing an unbelievably immature response video from Sabine where she doubled down on all of her bullshit rhetoric and made things much, much worse for herself.

He goes on to say Hossenfelder is a science denier.

This is how we get politicians voted into office 4:40 with fascist leanings. This is how the slide down the slippery slope towards theocracy 4:45 gains momentum. This is how we get people trying to force religion into public schools, and into federal laws. With Trump returning to office, he may follow through with his promise 4:56 to put RFK in charge of the department of health. RFK. An anti-vaxxer who has said that chemicals 5:03 in the environment can turn kids gay and trans and that HIV does not cause AIDS, may soon be 5:10 in charge of the FDA, NIH, USDA, and CDC. Are you listening to me? ...

As a global society we are sliding towards idiocracy, 5:37 and our survival as a species is at stake. Sabine feeds people narratives that are conducive to 5:43 those modes of thought, and in doing so she is pushing them further down the pseudoscience pipeline where they are more likely to be ensnared by actual demagogues and charlatans.

Meanwhile, Dr. Bee is back with My problem with the black hole information loss problem. She has legitimate complaints about unscientific papers about black hole information physics. Prof. Dave wants to blame her for Trump getting elected.